Posts Tagged ‘Jennifer Lopez’

I know for some of you it might seem a bit cruel to keep dishing out punishment on an unsuspecting Ben Affleck, but it’s become the running joke here at Theater Hopper and I’m only too happy to keep running with it. I hope you enjoy today’s comic as much as I do. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The last few weren’t up to snuff in my opinion.

Of course, today being Jersey Girl Day, I can’t wait to throw off the shackles of another work week and dive head first into my multiplex. I’ve been looking forward to this picture since they announced filming almost this time last year.

Of course, the movie has been cast in the unfortunate position of dodging post-“Bennifer”/Gigli fallout. But I sincerely believe that once people sit down and watch the film, none of that will matter. It’s regrettable that Kevin Smith and Miramax found themselves trying to reposition the film in the wake of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s breakup. But just imagine if the wedding had gone through as planned! We wouldn’t hear the end of it!

I know Jersey Girl isn’t “official” Askewniverse cannon, but I’m not particularly bothered by it. I appreciate that Kevin Smith set out to make a more “adult” film. As long as the true-to-how-people-talk brand dialogue is still in place, I’ll always buy a ticket to see what Smith has concocted next.

Yeah, I know it’s kind of lame to keep taking pot-shots at Gigli in our post-Bennifer world climate, but Ishtar and Waterworld jokes are even staler. Bear with me.

Lame jokes aside, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. If you’re traveling, I hope you make it to and from your destinations safely.

Thanksgiving kind of gets a bad rap because of the whole “My Crazy Family!” syndrome. But I find that the older you get, the less you interpret your family’s quirks as annoying. Somewhere in your 20’s they start to become endearing. I know some people who dread Thanksgiving because they don’t want to be around their families. But even if it’s a bad experience, you know these gatherings spawn the events you’ll be talking about for the rest of the year.

Anyway, happy Turkey Day, all.

Something I neglected to mention in Monday’s blog was actually pretty big news. After taking last Friday off from work, I labored tirelessly at home to bring the store up to speed. If you were to check it out now, you’d notice that the posters page is up and running. You’d also be aware that there are only 14 copies of the original Theater Hopper poster left! If you remember, only 100 were produced, all signed and numbered by yours truly. So they’re a real unique piece of web comic history and a pretty exclusive club to belong to!

The apparel section of the site has been updated as well. For starters, the “Spoiler”tee shirt and hoodie are back up for sale. If you missed it the first time around, now is the chance to place your order. I’m getting feedback and pictures from people who have received their shirts and they love them!

If you visit the shirt and hoodie pages, you’ll also notice that I added a NEW item called “Professional Movie Goer”. The inspiration for this design came from this strip when Jimmy flashed one of Tom’s “Professional Movie Goer” business cards back at him. Now you can let everyone at the multiplex know that you are the only one in attendance QUALIFIED enough to be called a professional!

I think the shirt that I’m most proud of is our new baby doll exclusive – “Truman in a Purse”. Taken directly from this comic where Cami celebrates Legally Blonde 2, now all the ladies can have Truman for their very own! We’re offering this in a TON of colors. 11, to be exact. So everyone should find something that fits their style!

I am currently taking pre-orders for all clothing items through December 10th, so place your order now to reserve your shirt! Due to the time it will take to get these back from the printer, I’m afraid I will NOT be able to meet any orders for holiday delivery. It’s a rough estimate at the moment, but I envision these shirts shipping sometime before the end of the year.

That’s pretty much all I have for the moment. Thanks again for everyone’s support. Best wishes and happy holidays!

Although I worked on today’s comic in advance, I did not prepare a Monday morning blog. Currently, I am suffering the after-effects of a Super Bowl party and the over-consumption of too many libations, meat and cheese. As such, my comments will be brief.

But real quick: Was it just me, or were the advertisements during this year’s game some of the lamest you’ve ever seen? Not a lick of creativity between any of them.

That aside, anyone looking for commentary regarding the revelation of Charlie’s big secret last Friday need only click the “BACK” link located directly below the comic. I added some words of not-so-much wisdom over the weekend.

Today’s buzzComix incentive sketch has nothing to do with today’s comic (as is typically the tradition). But instead the rough pencils for February’s raffle artwork. It’s a scene from the upcoming Keanu Reeves’Constantine. Don’t ask me what it is with all the comic book inspired drawings (last month was Elektra). I guess it must be the season for obscure sequential art caricatures.

At any rate, I provided a scene still from the movie that I’m using as my frame of reference. It’s been showing up in all the television advertisements and the trailer, so I gather it must be a “signature scene”. I think the artwork is coming along very nicely. I was excited about it and wanted to share it. Vote for Theater Hopper if you want to see it.

I had some thoughts about Constantine the movie – mostly relating to how fans of the original Vertigo comic book are upset that the character has been taken out of his London setting and his trademark blonde hair replaced by Reeves’ jet black dye job. But ultimately I conceded to the fact that once Reeves’ was cast, so was a limited range for the adaptation.

Will the movie be any good? Hard to tell. It clearly won’t be as good as the comic books. But maybe they’ll take things in a direction we don’t expect.

Something else unexpected… Cami said she was interested in seeing the movie. The ads led her to believe it’s about talking to the dead – a subject that fascinates her. Not entirely correct, but not entirely incorrect. Maybe it’ll be something to see. Goodness knows there hasn’t been much else worth watching these last few months…

Part of me wonders if it’s okay to write this bizarre re-telling of recent pop culture history to fit the mold of my storyline. I mean, celebrity or not, these are ∗REAL∗ people and conceivable ∗REAL∗ emotions were involved.

But then I think about the little perks the come with celebrity. Any time I read an article about an actor who is presenting the Best Supporting Actor trophy at the Golden Globe Awards and then talk about a $37,890 gift basket the receive for doing so, I start to think that this kind of dissection of their personal lives is a fair, Faustian bargain.

I watched The Matrix Revolutions tonight while drawing the strip. Like many, I remember being thoroughly let down when it came out in October of 2003. I didn’t buy it on DVD and I hadn’t watched it since that time. Tonight it popped up on HBO, so I decided to leave it on as background noise while I worked.

I don’t know why, but it played much better for me the second time on the small screen. I don’t know if that’s because my television did a better job of hiding the CGI (especially in the final airborne battle between Smith and Neo) or if because the “story” had time to permeate my brain in the near year and a half since I last viewed it.

More than likely the story didn’t miraculously achieve cohesion. More than likely it was a case of absence making the heart grow fonder.

Even though the last two movies landed with an incredible THUD! compared to the first, there is no disputing that The Wachowski’s created a visual style that will be referenced for the next 50 years. It’s just too bad they decided on putting the sizzle before the steak in the latter chapters.

I won’t pontificate beyond that. Too much has already been made about the subject and by more dedicated observers than I.

In other Keanu related news, his new movie Constantine opens this weekend. It’s the story of irreverent supernatural detective who has literally been to hell and back. And just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Today’s buzzComix incentive sketch (and future Donator’s exclusive desktop wallpaper) pays tribute to the upcoming film. I know I already showed you this drawing, but that was the ROUGH PENCILS! Since reaction to the piece was really positive, I thought everyone might get a kick out of seeing the final inks. Plus, the image in its entirety, not the close-up I took of the pencils. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll enjoy watching the artwork progress.

I floated the concept of this comic to Cami late last night and her response – her exact words were, “So, the premise of the comic is that you would rather fly to Korea than see a movie with your wife?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “Yeah.”

So I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a month…

Naw, I kid. Cami takes this stuff in stride. Although, I always feel a little dodgey representing our relationship in the comic as duplicitous or cruel. We kid around, naturally. But we don’t make it a habit of lying to one another.

Comedic license and all that. I’m sure you guys understand!

After nearly 4 years since her last movie (an eternity in Hollywood years) Jennifer Lopez has returned with The Back-Up Plan. If you don’t know the plot, it centers around a women in her 40’s (Lopez) who can’t find “The One” (uhhh, sure) and who conceives twins through artificial insemination.

Later, she meets the man of her dreams and the film explores the stages of a relationship as they develop completely out of sequence.

I pretty much checked-out on the concept of this movie after viewing the trailer. In which, there is a scene where Lopez walks with her knees locked together, presumably after visiting the insemination clinic, to keep the business from falling out.

As a dude, I don’t know how everything works down there, ladies. But I’m pretty much 99.9% sure you wouldn’t have to walk like that after having the procedure. Maybe the reason Lopez’s character hasn’t met “The One” yet is because she is an out-and-out moron.

I asked Cami if she was at all interested in seeing this movie and she thinks it looks stupid. Instead, we’re going to take Henry to see Disney’s Oceans and see how that goes over instead. We saw Disney’s Earth last year and even though it was put together from recycled footage from The Discovery Channel’s series Planet Earth, it was still a marvel to see on the big screen.

Henry is very funny about movies when we suggest them to him. If we ask him if he wants to see a movie or watch a DVD, he automatically says “No. I hate movies.” As you can imagine, this breaks my heart. But, you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt. Henry is a very determined little child and doesn’t entertain distractions very well.

Say, for example, Henry wants to go outside. It doesn’t matter if you asked him if he wanted a piece of candy instead of going outside. He’d still turn you down and say he hated candy because he is so focused on that ONE THING he wants.

He’ll be fine once we plop him down in the theater. We’ve taken him to a few films now and he never has a problem sitting through them. We’re looking forward to it.

At some point, I’m need to see Kick-Ass. I didn’t get a chance to check it out when I was in Chicago last weekend for C2E2. I’ve talked to some friends that were over the moon for it and I’ve talked to some friends that say the third act pretty much betrays the concept established by the first two-thirds of the movie. I think my expectations are in check, but I still want to see it.

Not much news, otherwise. Settling into a groove since coming back from the show. I’m slowly putting all of my shirts and books back into storage.

I have a plan for updating the Theater Hopper store in the near future either using the Magento or Open Cart shopping cart interface. I haven’t decided which. Once that happens, you should be able to buy a few new items including Theater Hopper: Year Three, a new shirt and a set of five 1″ buttons that I designed for the show. All good stuff.

Of course, this can only happen once I’ve shipped off everything for the people who preordered Year Three. They’re my priority right now. All the envelopes are addressed and packed up. Some are ready to be shipped. Some still need custom artwork. I need to develop a schedule for that so I can get those books out the door. I’m about a month behind where I want to be with that. Not good.

But, yeah. That’s my life right now. Thanks for swinging by the site today. Does anyone have aspirations to see The Back-Up Plan this weekend? If so, you’re braver than I. Lemme know your thoughts and feelings in the comments section and I will catch up with you soon!